Will Leverett and Rob Simpson of NCSoft recently did a lecture to our local community college about the ins and outs of running the service side of MMOs (customer service, account management, etc). J. over at Damned Vulpine went and took copious notes, and the result is a good primer on this oft-forgotten and underestimated aspect of running an online business. Included is a breakdown of how calls get routed through an outsourced India office, and the difference between supporting a PVE game like City of Heroes and a PVP game like Lineage 2. Come to think of it, I wonder how the introduction of City of Villians will change that equation.

One interesting nugget: according to Will and Rob, the customer service costs of running Guild Wars is considerably easier than for CoH and Lineage 2. They attribute that to lower expectations due to the lack of a monthly fee.

An interesting read. And I’m not just saying that because he p1mp3d my upcoming panel.